


Last Rites

by fanfoolishness (LoonyLupin), LoonyLupin



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, F/M, Rite of Tranquility
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-14
Updated: 2015-03-14
Packaged: 2018-03-17 17:53:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3538658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/fanfoolishness, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/LoonyLupin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Namira Lavellan is captured and forced to undergo the Rite of Tranquility.  Cullen has to speak to her for himself, no matter how difficult the conversation...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Last Rites

When Cullen opens the door she is standing in the middle of the healers’ quarters, facing away from him.  She is unharmed; there are no bandages on her arms, no foot held off the ground, no marks visible on the skin of her hands.  But the healers have told him what was done to her, what they cannot undo even with the knowledge of the Seekers, and he has to see it for himself, no matter how his hands shake.  He will not believe it until he sees it with his own eyes. **  
**

She looks at him over her shoulder, and his gorge rises in his throat.  He cannot see the way those green eyes look through him, the soft lips held in a flat line, the familiar scar on her forehead.  He can only see a clumsy red sunburst brand marring her intricate vallaslin.  She had told him the way the elves marked adulthood, the fine lines carved into their faces, the pain of the bleeding, the pride of the healed design.  Now her strength and maturity are fouled by the burn of red lyrium searing her flesh, and he wants to vomit.

“Cullen,” she says, turning to face him, and her voice is dull and even.  It’s her but not her, and he’s wild and frantic inside, wanting to scream, wanting to run, wanting to do anything but see her pithed like this.

“Namira,” he manages, his voice trembling.  He moves toward her automatically, aching with the desire to be near her, though his stomach clenches with every step.

“You’re upset,” she says, as if commenting on the weather.  She tilts her head slightly to the side.  “You are unhappy about what has been done to me.”

He nods, weakly.

She reaches up, slowly touches his face.  The movement is mechanical, experimental, nothing like the soft touch she normally has.   _Had._   When she pulls her hand away he can see tears glistening on her fingertips.  He had not realized he was crying.  He claps one hand to his mouth, breathing hard through his nose.  He blinks rapidly, trying desperately to hold things in.

“I would tell you not to cry,” she says.  “I have not.  But I can also remember advice of that nature never helped me before, when I did cry.”  Her voice drones in his ears.   _This isn’t real,_  he thinks, but she’s still talking in that horrible flat voice.  “If you need to be upset, Cullen, I understand.  It is all right to feel this way.”

“You — you  _understand_?” he forces out, lifting his head and glaring at her through swollen eyelids.  He wipes convulsively at his face, his hand smearing tears and mucus across his cheeks.  He draws a shuddering breath, trying to keep his composure.  “How could you?  You aren’t her.  You’re not her!”  The words ring around them both in the small room.

“I am myself,” Namira says. She is not hurt or dismayed by his words; indeed, it seems she barely registers them.  “That still remains.  I still bear the Anchor.  I am still an elf.  I am… changed, now, but I am still me.”

“You only think that,” Cullen snarls.  “But it isn’t true.  It wasn’t true for the mages in Ferelden or in Kirkwall, and it’s not true for—”  He can’t bear to finish the sentence, his voice cracking.  He slumps back against the wall, sliding down to a sitting position on the floor.  His legs won’t keep him upright.

“Do you wish me to send for the healers?” she asks.  He remembers the way she had asked him before if he needed help, when the lyrium caused him to cramp and ache, when dark dreams stalked his mind.  She had held him in the night, her voice warm and soft, her lips pressed against his cheek as she stroked his hair and told him it would be all right.  It had been nothing like this rote recitation of random words, strung together to form some semblance of meaning.

“No,” he says hoarsely.  He rests his head against the wall, stares at her.  She crouches down to see him better, but there is not even curiosity upon her face.

“I am sorry this is difficult for you.”  Still no expression.  “I want you to know that this was not your fault, Cullen.  I recall that self-hatred comes easily to you.”

He laughs, a short, barking sound, because he doesn’t know what else to do.  “Right in one.”  He stares helplessly at her.  

It’s her, and it’s not.  She is here and she is empty and it is killing him.

“I loved you very much before,” she says, examining the back of her hand idly.  She is quiet for a moment.  “It is obvious I can no longer be who I was to you, and I do not wish you to suffer for it.”

“But I will,” Cullen chokes.  He’s pleading now, though he knows it cannot do any good.  “You — you will never come back to me, will you?”

Her eyes are calm, fixed somewhere beyond him, her face placid.  “Not in the way I believe you need me.”  She bows her head slightly.  “I would remain your friend, if you would accept that.  I continue to believe myself bound to you in some way, a remnant of before.”  She slowly shakes her head.  “But I understand if that will be too difficult for you.  If ever you would like to speak, you know where my quarters are.  Farewell, Cullen,” she says abruptly, apparently deciding the conversation is over.

She gets to her feet and leaves without waiting for him to say goodbye.  She does not give him a backward glance.

When he is sure she is gone, he stares up at the ceiling, hands laying nerveless at his sides.  Fragments of the Chant flicker in his mind, useless, false.  Nothing can save him from this hell.  He takes one breath, and another, and it’s too much, this is too cruel, this cannot be borne and he can’t — he can’t —

He cannot stop the tears that come now.  He does not want to.

**Author's Note:**

> Just going to cry forever and ever at this idea.


End file.
